Laura Bieger (American Studies | Ruhr University Bochum/EXC 2020)

In her work on reading publics, Laura Bieger considers literature's social responsibility from a praxeological point of view as a collective doing that involves a multiplicity of human and non-human actors and institutions. She examines literary works as nodal points in a complex and shifting web of relations that catalyse activities such as reading, writing, publishing, reviewing, citing, recommending and republishing. For Bieger, political engagement is not intrinsic to certain styles, forms or genres, but defines literary practice from within this web in accordance with historically specific ideas about justice and social responsibility. Picking up themes from her forthcoming book Reading for Democracy, her input highlighted the function of literature as a critical infrastructure of the democratic public sphere, with a special focus on reading as a technologically and affectively conditioned infrastructuring practice.